


Everything the sun holds

by Rori



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: M/M, Prideshipping, Soulmates AU, post-dsod
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-13 16:07:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13574088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rori/pseuds/Rori
Summary: ‘You had your duel, Kaiba,’ starts the tired voice of the Pharaoh. ‘This world isn’t meant for people like you to thrive, much less visit.’‘People like me,’ he repeats, the words heavy on his tongue, ‘don’t get hold back by something as trivial as death.’-This story is currently in hiatus ; I'm rewriting it and hopefully will publish the next chapters soon !





	1. Intro

**Author's Note:**

> Or, what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object.  
> Updates will be on wednesdays, unless i specify otherwise :)

He sees it all – the way his first attack misses, rising a whirl of brown dust in its wake, dulling the golden, glowing edges of the Pharaoh’s silhouette cast against the thin fabric of this other reality.

He sees it _all_ , the small, disgustingly loving smile that reached the Pharaoh’s crimson eyes as he started to walk towards him, unrelenting, reminding Kaiba of that old saying, the question thick and heavy on his tongue as he wonders, not for the first time, _what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?_

The second head of his Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon doesn’t even look like it’s trying, its immaculate shot landing so far behind the Pharaoh that only a gust of wind reached him, entangling the wild expanse of his hair; and do we _need_ to talk about the third one?

‘I am not here to hurt your master, Dragon,’ he told the beast in a commanding voice, his hand reaching out to touch the tip of its nose, caressing it as he passed through, _unarmed_.

To Kaiba’s pride, the head recoiled madly, as if burned; his purple cloak is billowing with the slow regard of silent things, then gently settling against his back as the Pharaoh finally stops before him.

‘You came,’ he began, his voice the deep rumble of faraway thunder.

There’s a last card behind him, hovering above the ground in the maddening silence of this last attack; and as it slowly rises, there’s nothing to stop the last head, the middle one, from firing at the Pharaoh standing before him.

‘Forgive me,’ he finally said, his voice no more than a whisper.

 _No_ , Kaiba thought, vehemently, batting away the hand that was slowly reaching up to cup his jaw, _no._

He can’t help but notice the eerie way the soft blue glow of his Duel Disk meets Atem’s reddish eyes as the force of his Dragon’s attack ricochets off Mirror Force; _there is no such thing as an unstoppable force_ collides evenly with the quiet certainty that this very trap card isn't enough to win a duel, and never was meant to be. The Pharaoh can march like an army of one; can come, and try to claim whatever this is; but it sure _isn't_ a victory, unless –

There is the sudden, warm touch of fingers on his forehead, finding their way through hair to his heated skin; and Kaiba is starting to recognize the gesture, the words for what they really are, and what comes with them – doubt, they call it, and very much like a virus it is starting to infect every corner of his mind, until there's nothing left but the siren song of _unless it is_ endlessly whispering atrocities to him.

This isn't Domino City anymore – this isn't his world of carefully monitored variables and caged monsters.

Here, Mirror Force equals a banishing order.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update will be wednesday 11/02. Thank you all for the support!

Kaiba swears the marking carved under the sole of his feet is _burning_ ; he can practically smell the smoke, the acrid odor of burned flesh as he peels off the layer of blankets he is trapped _under_ –

‘You shouldn’t move too much,’ he hears, the soft voice of Isono stopping his trashing as he searches for him in his gigantic bedroom. ‘He fell asleep not long ago,’ Isono continued, ‘he stayed up all night – ’

The sharp pain of a needle nestled in the crook of his arm finally made him still, and he caught sight of the black clad silhouette of Isono partly shutting the blinds, not far on his left; an IV was slowly dripping its poison into his veins, and his little brother was asleep in the chair near the bed, his locket held tight in one hand.

‘Here,’ said Isono, presenting him a glass of water with a green straw.

He gladly took it, but found no use of the straw, sipping small gulps at a time, his throat as dry as paper; how long had he been out?

‘How long,’ he articulated to Isono. ‘How. _Long?_ ’ He repeated, louder, his head starting to pound, the answer coming way too slowly out of his guard’s mouth.

‘It’s been two days.’

The sole of his foot is still burning, like he’s stepping on hot concrete, like it was warmed by the relentless summer sun; but it’s June, still spring, even for just a few days more; this is _not_ Egypt, either, so Seto Kaiba has to settle for a less suitable explanation.

He sits up in the bed, giving back the glass to Isono.

‘We have guests sleeping in the lower bedrooms, sir.’ He informed him, uneasy.

He doesn’t even care – he’s already reaching for his right foot, careful not to tear the IV from his arm.

‘Do you need anything else?’ Inquired Isono, refilling the empty glass with water from a transparent pitcher set on the nightstand. He removed the straw, waiting for an elusive answer – his young master is searching his skin for the mark, and _of course_ it is still there.

‘Sir, do you need anything else?’

The hieroglyphs remain, enclosed by the same thread of gold making up the symbols, and with it everything left unsaid.

‘Did you – did you see him?’

Kaiba jumps a little upon hearing the trembling voice of Mokuba, his small fingers reaching for the hem of his sleeve like when they were little, his eyes still looking for nightmares long after waking up alone in his bedroom; except this time, it’s not his little brother that’s looking for hidden monsters in every shadow.

It flashes in angry red undertones against his closed eyelids, the truth of what happened there.

_Forgive me._

Isono is long gone when he finally answers.

'I did.'

'Spill,' Mokuba demands, arms crossed high on his chest, not fooled by the cool, detached exterior Seto had tried – and utterly _failed_ – to project.

Nothing is easy when it comes to him. The Pharaoh.

'That bad, uh,' he guesses bitterly at his brother's silence, smoothing the wrinkles on his white suit.

 _I need to go_ , Seto had said what felt like centuries ago, early designs of the pod glowing at his fingertips, the holographic displays already calculating whatever force it would take to leave the magnetic pull of Earth behind and go beyond that. _To the Pharaoh._

 _You don't_ need _anything_ , Mokuba had wanted to answer.

The imprint was not yet a cruel joke embedded deep in his brother's skin, that day; they were calling to each other nonetheless, through _dimensions_ , and the idea is big, and frightening, and _more_ in the most unfathomable of ways. And if Mokuba feels a little helpless, well, such things tend to happen when one tiptoes around fate. The other Yuugi, or whatever he has become, might have more answers than they do. Maybe dueling once a month, or twice a year, will be enough for the wretched imprint to fade.

His eyes narrow suddenly, in dumbfounded understanding of what exactly Seto isn't telling him.

‘He doesn't know,’ Mokuba says in an accusatory tone that doesn’t settle well with his brother's conscience. 'You didn't tell him!'

And _of course_ Seto brushes it off – it isn’t unheard of, having a god’s name etched on your skin.

‘It’s _completely_ different!’ Mokuba bursts, his blue eyes shining with anger, and what looks like frustration. ‘Nuns and priests having their god’s name on – on _them_ is in no way comparable to finding _his_ name on _you_ ,’ he hisses, his eyes going to Seto’s right foot.

The mark is still out in the open, taunting them both.

‘This isn’t religion, Seto – it’s, it’s a – ’ he watches silently as Mokuba tries to come up with a name that can encompass all that vast, wild eternity that is the Pharaoh – _forgive me_ , comes the vague, painful memory of being cast away.

It hurts more than it should, and in a totally new, unexpected way.

‘He _exists_ ,’ Mokuba eventually stutters, his eyes staring into the vacant blue ones of his brother.

He knows what Seto will do, knows it too well; he won’t say no, won’t argue and lie, not to him, but he won’t agree either.

‘We make our own fate,’ is the only answer he’ll ever get.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regarding what happens in this chapter: as i didn't want to tag "Soulmates AU" right away not to spoil that revelation, i'll add it sometimes during the week.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heya, i couldn't udpate last week - i'm very sorry :( Life kind of got in the way and i had to rewrite a big part of this chapter. Next part should be ready on time for next wednesday ;)   
> Thank you all for your support!

‘I found him like that. He was late’, Mokuba added in a tone that suggested it was an occurrence rare enough to cause him to worry.

It was easy to picture how it happened, Mokuba going up the stairs of the loft, padding quietly to his older brother’s door and speaking his name in hushed whispers as he made his way up there, and finding the door half-open, daylight passing through, the towering figure of Kaiba delimited by the sunlight pouring through the floor to ceiling windows behind him.

Yuugi wanted to picture it as a slow, hot summer morning, the kind that left you aching as the warmth of the day settled in your bones like a cat curling at your feet, your hair still damp from the shower but no longer cool; the kind of morning Seto Kaiba was bound to hate, to _resent_. He couldn’t imagine it any other way, even if he knew it was still late spring, and that despite everything the only burning thing about that day was probably Kaiba’s temper as he found the golden mark nestled on the sole of his foot.

_He was sitting on the unmade bed, the blankets ajar, holding his right foot in his hand._

Joey snorted, ‘Typical Kaiba drama, if you ask me.’

 _Nobody asked you_ , Yuugi had wanted to reply.

‘He didn’t know, I swear – even _I_ didn’t,’ his little brother argued in his favor.

It isn’t hard to trust Mokuba’s honesty – but Kaiba’s?

‘So you are telling us that – that your brother had the Pharaoh’s name _on_ him, this whole time?’

Mokuba nodded slowly, his eyes not daring to meet theirs; Joey voiced it better than him, but Yuugi really does not know how to ask this – Mokuba seems as lost as they are, and whatever happened with the Dimensional Travel System Kaiba tested, he was worried enough to call _them_ for help. No doubt he’d angered Kaiba –

‘Mokuba… How could he have not known?’ Téa asked him after a moment, sharing an unconvinced look with Joey.

Mokuba shrugged, with that frustrated look so close to his brother’s, and tried to brush it off, ‘I don’t know, do you look under your feet so often? I certainly don’t…’

‘Me neither,’ agreed Tristan, shrugging too.

‘I should show you,’ Mokuba mutters eventually, turning on his tablet and letting it display an holographic picture of the hieroglyph. ‘He wasn’t himself, after that. And I know it doesn’t excuse anything, but – he had to go. It’s between Seto and _him_ , right?’

What he shows them isn’t a photograph – it’s a 3D rendered model, and for a second, it feels like a joke. There’s none of the white Seto Kaiba skin, nothing that could expose him; just the golden lines of the cartouche gently floating, glowing a little, looking almost divine.

‘It’s –’

‘Are you sure,’ asked Téa immediately.

‘Yes,’ Yuugi breathed.

‘So what? Your brother and the other Yuugi are soulmates?’

The question comes out more angry than Joey intended, mirroring what Mokuba had felt, too, upon learning of his brother’s soul mark.

‘Is that what he meant after the Diva incident, when he told me –’ Yuugi can’t breathe enough to say it – he gulps down a mouthful of air, and averts his eyes from the light of the holographic cartouche. ‘When he told me they shared a bond?’

As much as Mokuba wanted to say yes, to consider the idea that his brother might have _lied_ to him –

‘No,’ he hesitated a little, his hand reaching for his locket and holding it tight. ‘He didn’t know yet. He discovered it only a few weeks ago, I swear…’

Mokuba remembered that morning in bits and pieces, like the vanishing memories you’d held from a dream upon waking up; he remembered walking to the bed, falling on his knees right in front of Seto, his devastated face turned toward the mark, the deep hurt in his blue eyes soon swallowed by anger.

And at that moment, Mokuba couldn’t help but to hate him, too; he _loathed_ him, that other Yuugi, a little more with every second spent looking at that damn tattoo and his mocking, eerie glow against the pristine white skin of his brother.

_How could you?_

‘I wish he’d never found it,’ he muttered.

_How could you condemn him to endure this?_

‘But – what if it’s real?’ asked Téa, and the fidgeting of her hands warned him of the hug she wanted to provide.

‘So what if it is, Téa?’ Yugi finds himself asking, wondering exactly _when_ Kaiba had discovered the not-scar hidden there.

The silence is ominous, and wild at the same time; it reminds Yugi of the heavy scent of oncoming summer rains, of ozone slowly spreading in the air as the sky darkens with bloated clouds.

‘I can’t picture _him_ , of all people, doing something like that out of _love_ ,’ Joey intervened, abruptly, arms crossed over his chest in a petty gesture. ‘He would have _run_ ,’ he hissed, anger suddenly clawing at him as he went on, adamant, ‘to him, it’s just a bunch of fate-related crap. He doesn’t believe, right?’ he asked Mokuba.

‘We make our own fate,’ he muttered.

His brother would have said that love is for children; that love didn’t get them out of the orphanage, neither did it fed or clothe them.

‘It makes sense,’ Yugi said after a moment, pondering the idea. ‘Not everyone gets imprints, these days…’

But Kaiba did.

He _did_.

Joey wanted to scream it into Yuugi’s face.

‘Some people get words. Other get drawings,’ Tristan shrugged, trying to come around the reality of what was tattooed upon Seto Kaiba’s skin. ‘We all know what a _name_ means...’

 _Even without a name_ , Mokuba wanted to add – he had read it all, again, and again. A few decades ago, a research team of neurologists had won a Nobel Prize for their thorough study of the imprints dynamics; studying the brainwaves of two people bearing each other’s names in their flesh, and they’d compared it to people having matching sets of tattoos (matching sets of _drawings_ , of _words_ not having the quiet certainty of names, but of marks nonetheless, ones that left absolutely _nothing_ to chance).

What appalled him the most was that the occurrence was not rare at all, getting a name, and that more than eight times out of ten, one appearing on you meant that your own was somewhere else too, and not wholly yours anymore.

‘It doesn’t make any difference,’ Mokuba stated defiantly, looking into Yuugi’s violet eyes. ‘Did he –’

He doesn’t want to voice it; it’s like saying the words will only make all of it even more _real_ , and he can’t bear the idea that fate, or whatever that joke of an imprint was, could be this cruel to his brother.

‘He didn’t even have a body of his own, Mokuba,’ answered Yuugi. ‘And I – I don’t think –’

It’s trapped against his throat, making it hard for him to breathe, that feeling; the loneliness had been hard, but this, this _here_ is a thick, black poison choking him –

‘If he knew, he wouldn’t have left. He would have stayed,’ he assured Mokuba.

Yuugi does his best to shove the rest of it down his throat with that silky poison, repressing that misdirected anger; had Kaiba found the imprint earlier, things would have been – but if Atem didn’t remember having one – and did they even have those in Ancient Egypt?

‘Why not ask the Ishtars?’

Joey’s quiery found silence, at first. So, he explained:

‘They guard his tomb, right? If anyone knew about the pharaoh’s imprints, it would be them.’

A heavy silence fell like a curtain, as Mokuba rose up – and left the room to go back to his brother sleeping form, leaving Yuugi and his friends to their plans.

.

Mokuba had politely answered any remaining questions he might have – _yes, it is still May, and yes, nobody took over the company while you were – gone._ Seto doesn’t need to ask who’s sleeping in the guest rooms below; they probably knew, too, what kind of curse had befallen him. It was easier to seek the help of heroes rather than confront a reluctant older brother who’d do anything to keep the mark a secret.

He wants them gone. What do they know of him? He has sacrificed more than they could ever hope to imagine, and achieved more in a few years than they would in a lifetime – and now, everytime Yuugi and his friends will be looking at him, they’ll only see that golden-edged shadow that once inhabited the Puzzle, just like Seto can’t erase the mark the Pharaoh left on him.

Pushing away the bedsheets, he went for the tablet on his desk – rather than dwelling on this immortal anger he feels towards a dead man who very much _banished_ him back to his home world, probably inducing his comatose state of the past few days and panicking his brother enough to call the full Yuugi-squad, Seto Kaiba decides it is better to be pragmatic once more, and to let all this sickly sweet emotional thing he felt evaporate.

Instead, the urgent need to look at it – to look at _everything_ – is starting to form up, mingling with his sanity as he searches through his personal files.

‘Show me,’ he asks his brother after a moment, his hands trembling too much for him to properly handle technology – the tablet is rebelling under his touch, beeping wildly like a caged animal, so he reluctantly puts it Mokuba’s waiting hands.

‘Here.’

And so he is shown the data, the displays, the pod not disappearing, but instead just falling through the atmosphere, straight down to Earth, the KaibaCorp satellite glowing an inhuman gold in the darkness of endless space; yet, somewhere during that fall, Seto had spent _hours_ entirely elsewhere.

'I was there,' Seto insists everytime the silence stretches on for too long, watching again all thirty-four minutes, twenty-eight seconds of it.

'It works,' Mokuba agreed, not denying the truth he can see written all over his brother's face. 'But,' he points out in an unyielding, overly sweet tone, 'we need to reduce the strain on your body.'

Isono had listed it all before leaving them alone, reading the medical chart fully like you'd read his sentence to a guilty man.

_Dehydration._

_Exhaustion._

It meant everything and nothing at the same time. Seto had wanted to argue that this wasn't the dimensional travel in itself – but probably the result of these few last months finally taking their toll. The Pharaoh banishing him might be another reason, one he didn't want to consider fully – he made a promise to Mokuba, and that one he intends to keep.

_Promise you won't go there until it’s safe enough._

_Promise me._

'Fine,' and it is an easy compromise to make.


End file.
